Finished "Artemis" by Andy Weir and "Ready Player One" by Ernest Cline in rapid succession this week. Now I'm in the post-book letdown phase until I find something else to read.

Rise of the Shield Hero, vol 8

Wolf and Parchment, vol 1

12 web novels as the chapters are translated

Started reading the "Burke" series of hard-boiled crime/mystery novels, written by one-eyed attorney, child advocate and pit bull enthusiast Andrew Vachss. Comprised of 18 books, the series started in 1985 (although Vachss claims that he didn't originally set out to write a series), with the publication of Flood. The final Burke tale, Another Life, was released in 2008.

The protagonist of the series is Burke. Child abuse survivor, ex-con and unlicensed private investigator. Burke can be a dangerous man, but he has a conscience and a code. That doesn't mean he's above the occasional grift. Especially if his mark is the right type of scumbag. Burke instinctively protects the weak, and punishes those who would harm the most vulnerable among us.

Raised in the system (and failed miserably by it), Burke is surrounded by what he calls his "family of choice". Prof (his mentor), the Mole (bomb maker and computer expert), a transgender woman named Michelle, a youngster named Terry, and a pack of lovable, if capably dangerous, dogs. This family aids Burke with his jobs, and sometimes shares in the dangers of his not-quite-legal line of work.

Burke's cases often involve the worst kind of scum. He may rub shoulders with very unsavory types (including mobsters and nazis) in order to earn his money. Of course, he is just as likely to find himself pitted against such people.

Vachss, an interesting guy in his own right, brings an authenticity and real-world sense of danger to what might otherwise be a clichéd exercise in by-the-numbers macho bullshit. As an attorney who only represents children and adolescents, and also as the former director of a maximum-security prison for juvenile offenders (later becoming a child advocate in the NY courts), the author knows enough of the language and customs of criminal culture, that he is able to use good sound fabric with which to weave his fabrications.

Recently I've been reading the Honor Harrington sci fi series. Got tired of it in book 10, but am now reading a related series about the Tree Cats. I've also read the Line of Duty series by Marco Kloos, also a sci fi.

No fiction currently, but I am going through the massive new Middle Earth From Script to Screen and The Golden Age of DC Comics. Good graphic design, good idea generators.

I just finished "Drastic Measures" by Dayton Ward, the 2nd tie-in novel for Star Trek Discovery. It's about Tarsus IV and Kodos the Executioner. I found the prose off-putting but the story was good.

Just finished "The Dancers at the End of Time" by Michael Moorcock and am now halfway through "Tales From the End of Time".

I'm rereading the last 3 or 4 Garrett, P.I. novels by Glen Cook. They're better than I remembered (and I was pretty glowing in my praise before). The Garrett books are better than the Dresden Files (and that's not in any way a knock on Dresden). They should get more love.

Fiction: Needful Things by Stephen King, Capes & Clockwork II anthology

Non-Fiction: Their Finest Hour (vol II of WWII series) by Winston Churchill, Blitzkreig Legend by Freiserr and Greenwood

RPG Gaming: Space Gamer Magazine, currently at #65 (Sept/Oct 1983), Holmes Basic D&D for podcast

Wargaming: NUTS by Two Hour Wargames

Mike

A Clockwork Orange and The Natural

Pip and Flinx, Humanx Commonwealth series, The Tar-Aiym Krang
by Alan Dean Foster

These space adventures are among the books that inspired Star Frontiers, and specifically the Vrusk (The Tranx) and the Yazirians.
I didn't know about this before. Flinx is a bit of a rogue, and Pip is his pet flying snake.

There was actually a Humanx sourcebook for GURPS.

Just finished Kings of the Wyld. It was an entertaining, if somewhat predictable read.

The Empire's Legacy by Jefferson Swycaffer. It's the first book of his Marterly Trilogy, and takes place in the author's Concordat universe, which is a sort of unofficial Traveller fiction. He says in the introduction that most of the story came from a Traveller scenario. I read the first book of his previous (also Traveller-inspired) pentalogy, and liked it. This one is good so far. The hardscrabble crew of a free trader on the way to a big score have an unexpected complication: the forced addition of an additional crew member (basically an Aslan with the serial numbers filed off), who may not be entirely what they seem....

Edit: all of Swycaffer's Traveller inspired books are available from Amazon for 99¢ apiece (Kindle edition). How can you go wrong?

Also reading The Devil's Butcher Shop: The New Mexico Prison Uprising. Not having enough nightmares? This book will fix you right up.

Just burned my way through all 10 volumes of the Mercedes Thompson urban fantasy series by Patricia Briggs. Very good by urban fantasy standards. The series isn't quite as good as the Dresden Files, but it's in the same weight class.

Never heard of this, but I'll try to check it out. I love the old pulp detectives (Chandler, Macdonald, Fleming) and if this series is at all like those I would probably like it.

You might try the Mantacore Ascending series (trilogy?) by Weber and Timothy Zahn. (Zahn is the Star Wars guy.) Same universe as Honor Harrington, but a generation or so earlier. I got really tired of the HH series, but this set of books revived my enjoyment of the setting.

Swords of the Damned by Richard Tongue. A tie-in novel to the Adventures Dark & Deep retro-clone. Tons of fun. This book isn't trying to be anything but an RPG novel. And that's what makes it work. Paradoxically, by not trying to be something more than what it is, the book is able to be something more than it should be. Highly recommended if you want a novel that has an authentic old school AD&D "feel". This ticks all the right boxes, and I'm having a blast with it.

Dragonlance - Time of the Twins

Edgar Rice Burroughs 100 Year Art Chronology Vol. 1 to 4. So many awesome art pieces, so many memories.

I picked up the English edition of the The Grey Witch: Record of the Lodoss War. It's a novelization of the first handful of episodes of the classic OVA from the 90s. Recently the SO has been interested in Lodoss War again, and we started talking about the RPG possibilities of playing in that setting. The novel has some color plates of the characters, and a map of Lodoss Isle which would be important if I run some games set within.

http://www.sevenseasentertainment.com/b ... d-edition/

I found my DVD of White Dwarf back issues so I'm slowly going through them. 1977-1987. Some good stuffs in them thar articlues (spelled that way on purpose.)

Marco Polo - The Journey that Changed the World - by John Man

I'm going to attempt to read all of the Nero Wolfe mysteries in chronological order. There's about 40 of them, but none of them are extremely long.

R-

Picked up reading these again . . book 9 or 10. Just fabulous!

A new Black Company novel is being released next month. That will probably be the next fiction I read.

I'm tearing through the new Black Company novel, Port of Shadows. It is excellent. Much better than the last 4 novels. This one takes place during an undefined period after the first volume. I think the new book fits in before the second Black Company novel, but I'd have to reread the original 3 volumes to be sure.

Tsuki ga Michibiku - found on novel updates. Isekai type web novel translation.

The Fall of Gondolin, JRR Tolkien.

Book 3 in the "Altered Carbon" series by Richard K Morgan "Woken Furies"

The Future Is Female! 25 Classic Science Fiction Stories by Women, from Pulp Pioneers to Ursula K. Le Guin

A new Library of America book with stories by women Sci-Fi authors from 1920's to the 1960's. Some famous names, some forgotten, but some great stories.

Now reading Monster Musume Harem wo Tsukurou. Otaku turned monster tamer.